Today we’d like to introduce you to Stella Chidoka.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I graduated from Texas Woman’s University in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in Nursing. I started my nursing career in pediatrics in Memorial Medical Center in Savannah Georgia. Moving back to Houston in 1985, I worked in several hospitals beginning with MD Anderson Cancer Center where I started in the pediatric unit. During my 10 years’ service in MD Anderson, I worked in Medical ICU, Bone Marrow Transplant Unit (Protected environment), and IV Therapy Unit. Next stop for me was Texas Children’s Hospital. At Texas Children’s Hospital, I worked in Bone Marrow Transplant unit, and Oncology Unit before I choose to join the resource pool. As a resource pool staff, you are sent all over the hospital wherever help is needed. I actually enjoyed my time in the resource pool because that gave me the opportunity to experience other areas of the hospital and meet and interacted with more people.
I developed interest in Home Health Nursing when my children were young. I found out that home health gave me more freedom to spend more time with my children. I was no longer tied up in the hospital for 12 hours of the day. I was able to attend my children’s school and after school activities. While working with home health agencies, I discovered that there is a great need for nurses in the community to educate, treat and assist with community resources.
United America Home Health Services was started in 2004 and was certified and licensed by DADS to offer skilled nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy and MSW services in 2006. In our skilled nursing service, we offer pediatric services, geriatric service, complex wound care, home infusion services and psychiatric service. United America Home health services is one of very few agencies in the Houston area certified in home psychiatric nursing. We have also added other community care services like PHC/FC and CLASS Program.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has not been a smooth road at all. In the first place the licensing and certification program took 2 years to complete during which you work for free. Dealing with insurance companies sometimes is a major road block. It is very painful when you see that a patient needs service and it takes a long time for service to be authorized.
Meanwhile what do you do when you have a patient that need wound dressing and it takes for ever to authorize visits or at the worst case scenario, the service is denied. There is a lot of need and lack of health education in the communities. You have patients who can’t afford their medications and ones that cut their medications in half to make it last longer. There is so much loneliness among our elderly population. Sometimes, that weekly visit by the nurse is the only human interactions that that patient has had all week. There are so much poverty and hardship in the community. Some homes are so bad that it breaks your heart that human beings live in them.
Home health nursing is generally very hard.
United America Home Health Services – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
United America is a licensed and certified home health agency. We are dedicated to promoting the physical and emotional well-being of our patients. We are committed to excellence. We value our patients and their families and work very hard to provide them with the highest quality and compassionate service possible. We offer skilled nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and MSW. Our skilled nursing service offers pediatric services, geriatric services, complex wound care and home infusion therapy and psychiatric nursing. We are one of the few home health agencies certified in home psychiatric nursing.
Our agency also have community care contracts with HHSC and some managed care organizations to provide PHC/FC and CLASS program. PHC is basically a non-skilled service that assists the elderly and disabled persons in the community with activities of daily living while CLASS program is a waiver program which allow people who would have ordinarily been in the nursing homes to be cared for in their own homes.
Our patients are generally highly satisfied with our services.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me are basic things like finding adequate community resources for my patients, watching that complex wound completely heal, keeping a psychiatric patient from the revolving doors of the psychiatric units or finally having that diabetic patient follow their diabetic plan, and making healthy dietary choices. When you work in home health industry, huge success is very rare but you still feel accomplished when baby steps are taken and mastered.
Pricing:
- Most of our services are fully reimbursed by insurance companies. For our private patients paying for non skilled service, we charge between $15-20/hour
Contact Info:
- Address: 3721 Briarpark Dr Suite 155 Houston TX 77042
- Website: www.unitedamericahealth.com
- Phone: (713) 975-1310
- Email: info@unitedamericahealth.com
- Facebook: www.unitedamericahealth.com
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